Dutch Covid-19 vaccine figures continue to fall

The number of people vaccinated against the coronavirus per week continues to fall, now that about 85 percent of adult Netherlands residents have received at least one shot. Two out of three Netherlands residents are fully vaccinated.

In the past week, 812,269 people received a shot, according to weekly figures from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). That is the lowest number since early May. It is the fifth consecutive week that the number of injections has fallen. A week earlier, just over a million people were vaccinated. The busiest week was early June, when 1.67 million people were vaccinated.

The vaccination campaign started almost seven months ago. Up to and including this past Sunday, 20.9 million shots have been administered. Among these were 12.4 million first shots. People who received the vaccine by Janssen, and who are therefore done after the first injection, are included in this. Last week, 166,488 people received a first shot, the lowest number of first shots since the week of 15 to 21 March.

In total, about 8.5 million people have received the second shot, almost 650,000 more than last week.

Due to the decreasing number of injections, several GGDs have announced that they will close vaccination locations. For example, the injection site in Houten will close on Wednesday and the location in the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht will also be closed at the end of this month. The Van Nelle factory in Rotterdam is no longer used for vaccination and the injections at the ss Rotterdam will also stop soon. In Nijmegen, the vaccination location in De Goffert, the stadium of football club NEC, will close on Wednesday, and next Sunday will be the last injection day at the ADO Den Haag stadium. In Groningen, the Kardinge skating rink will no longer be available from the end of August, because a new ice floor will be built there for the winter season. A few locations remain in each region, and the GGDs will, for example, drive around with injection buses to reach people who have not yet been vaccinated.

The figures show that the number of injections is hardly increasing among the over-65s especially. Last week 179 people aged 90 and older were vaccinated, compared to just over 700 the week before. Among those 179 were sixteen over-90s who received a first shot. In addition, 425 eighty-somethings received a first or second vaccination last week, compared to 5,261 in the week before.

The vaccination rate among people aged 60 to 89 is above 90 percent. The vaccination campaign started with these groups, because they are most at risk from an infection. Nearly 90 percent of people in their fifties and over 90s have been vaccinated. Furthermore, three quarters of all forty-somethings and two out of three thirty-somethings have been vaccinated.

The Netherlands received just over a million vaccine doses last week, bringing the total number of doses delivered to almost 24 million. Pfizer delivered nearly 724,000 doses last week, the highest number in about a month. Furthermore, more than 206,000 doses of Moderna were added, the largest delivery for that company yet, and almost 125,000 doses of Janssen. AstraZeneca hasn't delivered anything for almost a month.